HOB and QT tank

[KyleC]

I have a QT tank setup, 20g with a HOB, heater and an airstone. When doing water changes I changed the sponges... is it better to just rinse the sponges in QT water so as to keep the bacteria? I had been changing them to new ones but now I'm thinking this removes too much of the bacteria?

Asking because I just lost my chromis, no obvious illnesses.. it was only him in the tank. On checking parameters everything was good apart from ammonia which was reading around 0.2mg/l. Ammonia badge showing fine.

I'm going to bleach everything and dry then start my QT tank again using some sponge from the DT, but I want to know how best to increase bacteria in QT when I can't use rock or sand to avoid this happening again.

This is the hob I use HOB

 

[John Bolden]

Rinse them in tank water as it will kill the bacteria on them.

 

[KyleC]

Rinse them in tank water as it will kill the bacteria on them.

I'll do that in future. Think that's where I went wrong, changing them to fresh sponges. Thanks.